My mother’s computer got hit by one about 1.5 yrs ago. Crypto-something. I was able to work *around it*, and get her system up and running again without deleting any files. Took me 9 hours but i did it.

But the encrypted files are still there. Haven’t touched them. I haven’t researched it in a few months but the last answer I could find is: “pay the ransom and they’ll get you your money back’ [in my case I *think* the Russian dude’s in prison and the authorities kept his system working but have access to his assets… just not his decryption code….